Feature

Rest for Our Souls

Confession in an Age of Self-Esteemby Jim Forest

Among the hottest best-sellers of the 1970s was a book that had the catchy
title, I’m Okay, You’re Okay. One of its enthusiastic
readers, a young priest in Boston, gave a sermon about it that was a rave review.
He wished he could give everyone he knew a copy. The book’s message was
simple: To love others started with loving yourself, and loving yourself meant
acquiring self-esteem.

At the end of Mass, standing at the door, the priest asked one of his older
parishioners how he had liked the sermon. The man wasn’t eager to criticize
but responded, “I haven’t read the book. If what you say is true,
it’s better than the Bible. My only problem was that I kept thinking of
Christ on
. . .

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